Samaras’ next steps

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is planning the government’s next steps wanting to harness the good international climate towards Greece in order to create jobs and the conditions for the recovery of the Greek economy.

As he said yesterday at a Constantinos Karamanlis Institute and Konrad Adenauer joint event, his priorities are external reliability and internal social cohesion. He also pointed to the need to reconcile the liberal economy with the principles of the welfare state.

The government staff is satisfied with the recent upgrading of the country's economy by Standard and Poors, but keeps a low profile because it believes that the coming months will be very difficult.

It is also satisfied with the agreement in the meeting of the political leaders, saying that unanimity on the key goals is a guarantee for the political stability that is necessary to reverse the economic downturn. Although the presidents of DIMAR and PASOK still have objections to the tax bill, they do not intend in any way to vote against it.

Another priority of the PM is to attract investment by creating a positive environment and a stable tax framework. To this end, he will introduce a new investment law in the first months of 2013 and the tax reform by March. The meetings of political leaders will become more frequent in order to improve coordination of government work and prevent cases of malfunction and miscommunication. Samaras will visit the Administrative Reform ministry  today and will convene a broad meeting to determine the progress in promoting the reforms in the Public Sector.

In the context of attracting investment, he is preparing a trip to the United Arab Emirates and possibly Qatar in January, as they have expressed their interest in Greece.